Countess Palatine Christiane Henriette of Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld


Christiane Henriette of Palatinate-Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld was a Countess of Palatine of Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld by birth and by marriage a Princess of Waldeck-Pyrmont.

Life

Christiane Henriette was the daughter of the Count Palatine and Duke Christian III of Zweibrücken from his marriage to Caroline of Nassau-Saarbrücken, daughter of Louis Crato, Count of Nassau-Saarbrücken. Christiane Henriette was the sister of Christian IV, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken, the Great Landgravine, and Field Marshal Frederick Michael, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken. She was also an aunt of the first Bavarian king Maximilian I.
She married on 19 August 1741 in Zweibrücken, Karl August, Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont. After the death of her husband in 1763, she was Regent of the principality and guardian for her first-born son from 1764 to 1766. In the years 1764 to 1778, the New Castle at Arolsen was built as her Wittum by Franz Friedrich Rothweil.
Christiane Henriette was considered highly educated in arts and sciences. She was a close friend of the anthropologist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach Christiane collected a comprehensive library, which by 1788 included about 6,000 volumes and in her Arolsen Castle, she maintained an art and natural history collection.
When she died, Christiane left behind a considerable debt, which is why parts of her library and art collection had to be auctioned off in 1820 had.
Christiane Henriette died in 1816 and was buried in the park of her New Castle at Arolsen.

Offspring

From her marriage with Karl August, Christiane Henriette had the following children:

Footnotes